https://camerontaylor.dev/ • This is a web feed, also known as an Atom feed. Subscribe by copying the URL from the address bar into your newsreader. Visit About Feeds to learn more and get started. It's free. Visit website Recent posts Updated on $DATE both GitHub Copilot A personal website for Cameron Taylor Zola2025-12-16T00:00:00+00:00https://camerontaylor.dev/tags/github-copilot/atom.xml 2025-09-17T00:00:00+00:00 2025-12-16T00:00:00+00:00 Cameron Taylor https://camerontaylor.dev/blog/fixing-ghcp-inline-suggestions/ <p>and other improvements to GitHub Copilot usability…</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://camerontaylor.dev/blog/fixing-ghcp-inline-suggestions/#better-inline-suggestions">Better Inline Suggestions</a></li> <li><a href="https://camerontaylor.dev/blog/fixing-ghcp-inline-suggestions/#fix-tab-completion-with-terminal-suggestions">Fix Tab Completion with Terminal Suggestions</a></li> </ul> <hr /> <h2 id="better-inline-suggestions">Better Inline Suggestions</h2> <p>One of the most frustrated things about using GitHub Copilot has been the default behavior of inline suggestions. If I were piloting a plane, it would be very annoying if the copilot decided to reach over and grab my controls any time it pleased.</p> <p>However, there are times when I do wish I had access to these suggestions, so I do not want to disable them completely.</p> <p>The following shows how to disable inline suggestions by default and invoke it with an explicit keyboard shortcut.</p> <h3 id="disable-inline-suggestions">Disable Inline Suggestions</h3> <p>Add the following to your VSCode user settings. This disables inline suggestions.</p> <pre data-lang="json" class="language-json z-code"><code class="language-json" data-lang="json"><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-section z-mapping z-begin z-json">{</span> </span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"> <span class="z-comment z-line z-double-slash z-js"><span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-comment z-json">//</span> other settings . . . </span></span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"> </span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"> </span><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-key z-json"><span class="z-string z-quoted z-double z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-string z-begin z-json">&quot;</span>editor.inlineSuggest.enabled<span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-string z-end z-json">&quot;</span></span></span><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-separator z-mapping z-key-value z-json">:</span> </span><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-value z-json"><span class="z-constant z-language z-json">false</span> </span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-value z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-section z-mapping z-end z-json">}</span></span> </span></code></pre> <h3 id="trigger-inline-suggestions">Trigger Inline Suggestions</h3> <p>When you wish to invoke inline suggestions, use the <code>editor.action.inlineSuggest.trigger</code> vscode command.</p> <p>By default, this is bound to <code>alt+\</code> on windows and <code>opt+\</code> on mac.</p> <h3 id="accept-inline-suggestions">Accept Inline Suggestions</h3> <p>One the suggestion appears, it can be accepted as normal with <code>tab</code>. Or, using the <code>editor.action.inlineSuggest.acceptNextWord</code> and <code>editor.action.inlineSuggest.acceptNextLine</code> vscode commands, the first parts of the suggestions can be accepted. These are helpful when only the first portion of the inline suggestion is desired.</p> <p>By default, <code>editor.action.inlineSuggest.acceptNextWord</code> is bound to <code>ctrl+right</code> on windows and <code>cmd+right</code> on mac. But, <code>editor.action.inlineSuggest.acceptNextLine</code> has no keybinding, so you will need to make a custom shortcut.</p> <p><img src="/img/fixing-ghcp-inline-suggestions/incremental-inline-suggest.gif" alt="screen recording of using inline suggestions" /></p> <h2 id="fix-tab-completion-with-terminal-suggestions">Fix Tab Completion with Terminal Suggestions</h2> <p>GitHub Copilot includes suggestions for completing commands when using the integrated terminal in VSCode. By default, pressing <code>tab</code> or <code>enter</code> will execute the first command, which is annoying because tab completion is deeply ingrained in the muscle memory of anyone who uses a terminal regularly.</p> <p><img src="/img/fixing-ghcp-inline-suggestions/inline-suggest.png" alt="screenshot of inline suggestions" /></p> <blockquote> <p><em>No… I don’t want to clone a whole repo in my current project…</em></p> </blockquote> <p>Setting the selection mode in user settings to <code>"never"</code> will require first navigating to a suggestion using arrow keys.</p> <pre data-lang="json" class="language-json z-code"><code class="language-json" data-lang="json"><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-section z-mapping z-begin z-json">{</span> </span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"> <span class="z-comment z-line z-double-slash z-js"><span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-comment z-json">//</span> other settings . . . </span></span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"> </span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"> </span><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-key z-json"><span class="z-string z-quoted z-double z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-string z-begin z-json">&quot;</span>terminal.integrated.suggest.selectionMode<span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-string z-end z-json">&quot;</span></span></span><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-separator z-mapping z-key-value z-json">:</span> </span><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-value z-json"><span class="z-string z-quoted z-double z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-string z-begin z-json">&quot;</span>never<span class="z-punctuation z-definition z-string z-end z-json">&quot;</span></span><span class="z-punctuation z-separator z-mapping z-pair z-json">,</span> </span></span><span class="z-source z-json"><span class="z-meta z-mapping z-value z-json"><span class="z-punctuation z-section z-mapping z-end z-json">}</span></span> </span></code></pre>

and other improvements to GitHub Copilot usability...